Category Archives:Paranormal

proof-of-heaven-eben-alexander
Oct. 12.

Brain surgeon says heaven exists after a near-death experience

By rebecca | Posted in Books, Paranormal, People, Religion, Stories |

As a neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander did not believe in near-death experiences (NDEs). He grew up in a scientific world, followed his father’s footsteps as a neurosurgeon, and taught at Harvard Medical School and other universities. He always believed that NDEs could be explained by science and that it was not surprising that people who suffered from severe trauma would have strange stories, but that didn’t mean the journey was real. Until Dr. Alexander experienced it. 

In 2008, he fell into a coma after contracting meningitis which caused his neocortex, the human part of his brain. to shut down. Then he “experienced something so profound that it gave [him] a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.” 

Read his essay: Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife, Newsweek Magazine/The Daily Beast

Below is a video of Dr. Alexander discussing his experience.

His book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, is available at Amazon.

via Yahoo News; The Telegraph

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Mar. 19.

Researchers find no evidence for existence of psychic ability

By rebecca | Posted in etc., Paranormal, Science |

 

“The Crystal Ball” by John William Waterhouse 

In response to Daryl Bem’s appeal for independent researchers to replicate his 2011 study on the existence of precognition, three researchers attempted to replicate one of his experiments but none of the results supported Bem’s findings.

Daryl Bem is a well-respected psychologist and professor emeritus at Cornell University.  His controversial  study published last year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology appeared to suggest that precognition – the ability to perceive future events – is real.  The experiments involved “time-reversing” familiar psychological effects to investigate whether participants’ responses could be influenced by future events.  Bem urged psychologists to replicate his findings and be more open to the idea of psychic ability.

Three independent researchers, Ritchie, Wiseman, and French (2012) have attempted to replicate one of Bem’s experiments employing an almost identical procedure.  The replication attempts, however, found no evidence for the existence of psychic ability.  (Surely, many will vehemently disagree. Calling Mr. Licauco and Anthon St Maarten).

The report was rejected by The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which published Bem’s findings with the appeal for independent researchers to perform replications.   It has been accepted and published by open access journal PLoS ONE.

Here are the closing paragraphs by Ritchie et al. (2012) in their report:

Our failure to find similar results even after three close replication attempts, along with the methodological and statistical issues discussed above and at least one other published report of a failed replication attempt leads us to favour the ‘experimental artifacts’ explanation for Bem’s original result.

At the end of his paper Bem urges psychologists to be more open towards the concept of psychic ability, noting how, in Alice in Wonderland, the White Queen famously stated, ‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast’. We advise them to take a more levelheaded approach to the topic, and not to venture too far down the rabbit hole just yet.

Read the full article: Ritchie, S. J., Wiseman, R., & French, C. C.  (2012).  Failing the future: Three unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem’s ‘Retroactive Facilitation of Recall’ effect.  PLoS ONE, 7(3), e33423. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033423


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